On October 10, three days after the Hamas invasion of Israel, Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, posted a message in Hebrew on X: “Tyrannical Zionists: The defeat of Saturday, October 7, is something you can never rise above - you brought this calamity upon yourselves.”
It was a moment of triumphalism. Israel was bleeding. More than 1,200 people had been slaughtered and 251 people had been taken hostage to Gaza. The country was paralysed by grief and shock. In Tehran, Beirut and Gaza, leaders of the so-called “resistance axis” believed history had turned in their favour.
If Khamenei were alive today, and not killed in the opening strike of the ongoing war against Iran, that same tweet could now be written about him.
On October 7, Khamenei, Hassan Nasrallah and Yahya Sinwar were intoxicated by what they saw as strategic genius. Israel had been humiliated and its deterrence had collapsed. The Jewish state looked vulnerable.
Two-and-a-half years later, it is clear who rose above and who did not.
Sinwar is dead. Nasrallah is dead. And now Khamenei is dead.
Ironically, Khamenei achieved in death what countless Israeli prime ministers dreamed of in life: a fully synchronised American-Israeli military campaign aimed at dismantling Iran’s leadership and degrading its strategic capabilities.
President Donald Trump has openly called on the Iranian people to seize the moment and topple the regime and has unleashed a wave of strikes not seen since the Iraq War 23 years ago. What once would have been dismissed as fantasy - American and Israeli forces operating in full coordination against the heart of the Islamic Republic – became reality.
His reign of terror and relentless nuclear ambitions helped forge what can only be described as the clearest illustration yet of the U.S.-Israel military alliance. Hundreds of aircraft flew side-by-side. They refuelled one another. They protected one another. They shared intelligence in real time. This was not symbolic coordination. It was operational fusion.
In this campaign, Israel is not merely an ally. It is a partner - as Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth described it – contrasting Israel with other “traditional allies” who “clutch their pearls” and “whine about use of force.” Whatever one thinks of the phrasing, the message was clear: Israel showed up and carried its share of the burden.
That indispensability matters, especially with a president like Trump, who is openly transactional and expects allies to put skin in the game rather than sit on the sidelines. Israel demonstrated that it is willing and able to do so.
This closeness is critical. When adversaries believe there is daylight between Jerusalem and Washington, they exploit it. The visible operational intimacy on display right now strengthens Israel’s deterrence and standing in the region. It signals that the alliance is not mere rhetoric - it is real.
The potential for change, however, extends well beyond Iran itself.
The regime’s attacks against Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman, Jordan and Iraq expose a long-standing myth. For decades, detractors have argued that Israel is the primary source of instability in the Middle East and that if the Israeli-Palestinian conflict were only resolved – or if Israel simply did not exist - the region would be calm.
Iran’s actions prove otherwise and if anyone still doubted who fuels unrest and conflict in this region, they likely do not anymore.
Imagine a Middle East in which the Islamic Republic is gone and the ayatollahs are removed from power. In the immediate term, Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis and the militias in Iraq would be severely weakened. They would lose their primary source of funding, weapons and strategic direction and their capabilities would deteriorate.
Lebanon offers a glimpse of that possibility.
After Hezbollah fired a barrage of rockets into Israel early Monday morning, senior Lebanese officials – including the prime minister – announced a decision to ban Hezbollah’s military activity and begin steps toward disarming the group. That is nothing short of seismic. For decades, Hezbollah operated above the state, shielded by Tehran’s backing. A weakened Iran alters that balance.
Which is why this war is about more than just security for Israel or the opportunity for freedom for the people of Iran. A diminished Islamic Republic changes the calculus for every country in the Middle East.
Governments that were effectively held hostage by Iranian proxies can now push back, assert sovereignty and even grow publicly closer to Israel with less fear of retaliation. For years, Gulf states hesitated to deepen ties with Israel out of concern that Tehran would strike their infrastructure, inflame their streets or portray them as collaborators.
With Iran weakened, that fear is reduced.
Does this mean that political obstacles to normalisation will suddenly disappear? Of course not. Governments will still weigh domestic opinion and broader strategic interests. But one significant obstacle - the credible threat from Iran - has been diminished.
For decades, the Islamic Republic terrorised this region and October 7 was supposed to demonstrate the success of that approach. Instead, history may now show that it was Iran that could not rise above the consequences of its own aggression.
Yaakov Katz is a co-founder of the MEAD policy forum, a senior fellow at JPPI, and a former editor-in-chief of the Jerusalem Post. His newest book is While Israel Slept.
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